Al­though Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­turn from Scot­land this evening will be too late for this morn­ing’s thanks­giv­ing ser­vice by the PNM’s To­ba­go unit, they’re look­ing for­ward to his pres­ence at their To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly cam­paign launch to­mor­row.

The De­cem­ber 6 THA elec­tion is among po­lit­i­cal bat­tle­fronts Gov­ern­ment re-en­ters this com­ing week, in­clud­ing in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

To­ba­go PNM chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­dar will, how­ev­er, be ap­pear­ing at to­mor­row’s Shaw Park Cen­tre vir­tu­al launch af­ter be­ing re­cent­ly hos­pi­talised. Cal­len­dar, who’s re­ceived pos­i­tive as­sess­ments on his check­ups since a 2015 is­sue, said he sim­ply need­ed rest amid a heavy elec­tion prepa­ra­tion.

“We’re not los­ing this elec­tion,” Cal­len­dar said em­phat­i­cal­ly yes­ter­day.

Cal­len­dar’s pulling out the stops to en­sure the PNM re­coups af­ter its four-seat loss and 6-6 tie with the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots in Jan­u­ary’s THA poll. He’s mak­ing a par­tic­u­lar ef­fort in Bethel/New Grange, which the PNM lost by 17 votes and where can­di­date Down­ie Mar­celle was re­cent­ly COVID-19-hit.

To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe and three oth­ers cam­paign­ing with Mar­celle re­cent­ly were quar­an­tined from Oc­to­ber 22, she con­firmed. Af­ter a PCR test and get­ting a neg­a­tive re­sult on Mon­day, Cud­joe re­ceived re­lease “pa­pers.”

“No­body got ill, we were masked and prac­tic­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing,” she added.

Row­ley re­turns from the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence, where he had a tough act to fol­low af­ter Mon­day’s ad­dress by Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley. She’d lament­ed cli­mate change dan­ger to small is­lands.

Her high heels would have been hard to fill giv­en T&T’s sta­tus in the World Bank’s Glob­al Car­bon Project 2019, where its re­port­ed fig­ures for car­bon diox­ide emis­sions – caus­ing glob­al warm­ing – put T&T in sec­ond place world­wide. T&T’s con­sis­tent­ly placed with­in the top ten con­trib­u­tors of CO2 since 2011.

Mot­t­ley’s frank style gave her rock­star sta­tus - US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden hold­ing hands with her and Prince Charles chat­ting. Row­ley, who’d not­ed cli­mate change ef­fects on T&T, sub­se­quent­ly held talks with Lon­don oil com­pa­nies on emis­sions.

What­ev­er blis­ter­ing giv­en by the PNM to To­ba­go op­po­si­tion to­mor­row will be ex­tend­ed to Trinidad op­po­nents, whom Gov­ern­ment faces in the Low­er House for Wednes­day’s de­bate to ap­prove new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mem­bers.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s view that the Pres­i­dent’s picks were “taint­ed” may be the UNC’s strongest ob­jec­tion against the five nom­i­nees – out­side of walk­out or ab­stain­ing – since Per­sad-Bisses­sar was con­sult­ed and they wouldn’t have been pre­sent­ed if she’d ob­ject­ed. UNC’s ar­gu­ments against the Pres­i­dent will fea­ture in de­bate.

But her “taint­ed” ar­gu­ment went be­yond the Pres­i­dent. On Oc­to­ber 14, af­ter the for­mer PSC col­lapsed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she be­lieved the for­mer PSC’s mer­it list for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was taint­ed and the process for se­lect­ing a com­mis­sion­er should start over. She said she re­searched it and the list was “dead” - but promised more re­search to see if the list could “rise from the dead.”

Last week, she said the list is “legal­ly live.” For­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith had al­so said the list could be used.

Whether new com­mis­sion­ers use it re­mains ahead. Le­gal sources be­lieve it can be used un­less some­thing’s proven to have gone wrong in the process. Al­so, since there’d be a le­gal ex­pec­ta­tion of this by the sev­en peo­ple on the list.

What­ev­er ex­pla­na­tions on it from the new PSC will have to in­clude why for­mer PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad with­drew the list. Re­ject­ed can­di­date Se­nior Supt Anand Rame­sar’s le­gal mat­ter to halt the process – al­leg­ing a faulty se­lec­tion process – is al­so still live.

Grif­fith, back in T&T, has been in “skir­mish­es” clash­ing on new T&T Po­lice Ser­vice pro­ce­dures. Whether ac­knowl­edge­ment that he knows his chances at CoP are slim – af­ter Row­ley’s rev­e­la­tion of a lack of con­fi­dence in him – his bat­tle’s still ahead.

Al­so, the Op­po­si­tion faces (los­ing) bat­tle with com­bined Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors’ votes with Tues­day’s de­bate of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira’s mo­tion of cen­sure against Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors’ be­hav­iour. This con­cerns the Oc­to­ber 21 sit­ting for UNC’s mo­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Male Weekes, which was de­feat­ed by Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent votes.

The UNC’s de­fence has so far come from non-Sen­a­tor (MP) Bar­ry Padarath. UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark, com­ment­ing on Vieira’s mo­tion on Thurs­day, said, “Knowl­edge will tri­umph over ig­no­rance, light over dark­ness - good ul­ti­mate­ly over evil.”